I'm so sorry this took forever, guys! I'll try and get the next one up really soon, and I'll be responding to all your reviews pretty quick too. Thanks for your patience!

Valentine's day… Most people were celebrating. There might have been some kind of celebration in the Great Hall, but Remus was too tired and too adverse to open proclamations of love to bother attending. Instead, he was sitting on the tattered bed in the shack, waiting for the moon to set. He watched through the cracks of the boarded windows as the sky faded from a glorious and fittingly pink to twilight and melancholy blue. He still had an hour or two before the moon rose, and he was content to spend them in silence.

Sirius was sitting on his own bed in the dorm room, equally adverse to Valentine's Day. It was a stupid holiday, really. Right now, he knew Remus was sitting in the shack. The four of them were all separately hating the holiday, he was sure. James would be pacing outside the door of that room in the shack, waiting for the transformation to end (Padfoot was the only one who stayed in the room while Remus transformed). Peter alone was attending the celebration in the Great Hall.

Sirius was angry with him for this, too. Peter still had the choice of being with Remus and he had decided against going. Too scared without Sirius there was his reason. It killed Sirius. He was stuck in the dorms, wanting more than anything to be there tonight, and he couldn't. Who the hell did Pete think he was?

He picked up the nearest thing to him, a text book, probably Remus', and threw it as hard as he could. It slammed against the wall near the door.

"Hey, be careful. That could have taken my head off."

"What are you doing here?"

James came into the room, his satchel slung over his shoulder. "Putting my books away?"

"Remus is alone?"

The bespectacled boy rolled his eyes. "I'm heading down there right now. I still have plenty of time." He paused, looking at his bed for a moment before turning his gaze to Sirius. "You're not the only one who is capable of protecting him, Pads."

"I didn't mean that."

James laughed once, mirthlessly. "Of course not. You never mean anything. But you still hurt people."

Sirius couldn't respond to that. The Black in him told him he should be angry at James for saying something like that, angry at Remus for banning him from the Shack, angry at Snape for getting them all into this situation… but he wasn't angry at all. What James said was undeniably true.

James nodded and took off his tie, throwing it on his bed before walking past Sirius and towards the door. "Happy Valentines Day."

"James-"

The door shut harshly, and Sirius could hear James' footsteps receding. Sirius' eyes turned back to the window, waiting for the moon to make its slow journey across the night sky.

James sat against the door to the room Remus was in, his head on his knees as he waited. It killed him that Remus was in there alone, even if he knew James was right outside. Every month since third year at school, Sirius had been there, next to him through every step of the transformation. Remus could deal with this alone, James knew, but it had to be so hard.

His eyes clenched shut when the screams started. Remus was trying to be quiet, but the pain was probably too much. James wished Sirius was here. Sirius understood this process, far better than James or Pete did, and Sirius had a way of quieting their friend's screams.

When the screams turned into howls, James quickly got to his feet and opened the door, transforming into Prongs before Moony could even get a whiff of human.

The wolf looked at him and bared his teeth, a low growl in his throat, but he made no advances forward. Moony knew something was wrong, that someone had wronged him, and that someone needed to pay. Both the wolf and the stag knew it was going to be an awfully long night.

It had only been an hour of the wolf pacing, and sometimes lunging, and Prongs patiently dealing with it, before he heard a long growl from the wolf. He thought the growling had ended when Moony first transformed, but a second growl and a bark made him turn his head to see what the wolf was growling at.

There, in the doorway, was a very familiar large, black dog. The stag bucked its head almost angrily, but Padfoot gave him such a pathetic, pleading look that he couldn't say no.

Moony had no problem saying no, however. In the three seconds that Prongs had looked away, Moony had jumped and lunged right for Padfoot's throat. The dog yelped as he was slammed onto the floor with fangs gripping his neck harshly, but not breaking skin. His front paws pushed against Moony, which only caused the wolf to bite harder. Prongs could do nothing.

Finally, Sirius let his canine instincts kick in and he stopped struggling against Moony. That seemed to be the right thing to do, because Moony growled and released him. Prongs only noted with a sigh of relief that it was going to be a very long night.

Sirius rushed back to the dorms before Moony transformed back into Remus. He wouldn't risk being caught; he knew how angry Remus would be.

In the pre-dawn light, Sirius stood in the bathroom, examining his body in the mirror. Moony had certainly taken out his anger on Padfoot. He was bleeding in several places, and there were two parallel rows of round bruises on his neck… where Moony had taken a hold of him early in the night.

He sighed, setting to cleaning himself up. He had gotten good at it, since he couldn't go to Madam Pomfrey. She would just ask questions he couldn't answer.

"Are you out of your mind?" a voice hissed from the doorway.

Sirius looked over. James was standing there, looking positively irate. "I'm coming to that conclusion."

"He told you not to go! He could have killed you, Sirius."

Sirius shook his head. "Shh, Pete's still asleep."

"Sirius, Rem is going to maim you."

Sirius turned sharply, pulling James into the bathroom and closing the door. "He'll never know I was there," he said, and it was more of a threat than anything else. "I made the night easier on him and you, and you can't fault me for wanting to be there."

"I can fault you for going against Remus' wishes."

Sirius gave him that pleading look again, and he sighed. "Fine. I won't tell him."

"Thank you," Sirius breathed, pulling his jumped on and covering all signs of where he had been except for the bruises on his neck. "How's Rem?"

"He's fine. Says he'll be to class after lunch." James relented and told Sirius something he probably shouldn't have. "He said the night went a lot smoother than he expected it to."

Sirius beamed. That was because of him. It didn't even matter that Remus didn't know it.